Equipment can be acquired from many different sources in this game. Feel free to mix and match gearing methods in a way that works for you.

Exotic or Ascended?

In Guild Wars 2 there is no gear treadmill. The only two equipment tiers for endgame gear are Exotic and Ascended.

Exotic gear is the second best tier. It's relatively cheap and easy to obtain, as a full set of Berserker's exotic gear only costs ~35 gold on the Trading Post (~10 gold if you don't count trinkets). It's also good enough for everything other than high-level fractals.

Ascended gear is the best tier. It's significantly more expensive than exotic gear, as a full set is timegated and costs 200-400 gold to craft. However, it only offers a 12.5% damage increase over exotic gear. You don't need to get ascended gear unless you want to run high-level fractals (in which case you need the infusion slots). However, it's a good long-term goal, especially if you plan to play WvW or do raids.

Ascended gear can be upgraded with agony infusions, which provide the agony resistance needed to survive high-level fractals. Alternatively, they can be upgraded with stat infusions, which provide a marginal amount of stats. Agony stat infusions provide the best of both worlds but are extremely expensive and most players don't bother with them.

Ascended trinkets (backpieces, amulets, accessories, rings) are relatively easy to get, so you can consider skipping exotic and going straight to ascended for these.

When upgrading from exotic gear, you should upgrade your weapon first, followed by your trinkets, as most of your stats are in these items.

Table of Stats and Prefixes

Stat combinations introduced in different releases have different methods of acquisition.

Core/Release stats were included at release. These stats are generally the easiest to acquire.

Core/Extended stats were added during Living World Seasons 1 and 2.

Core/Hybrid stats are similar to Core/Extended stats but only available on certain ascended trinkets.

Heart of Thorns stats were added during Heart of Thorns and Living World Season 3. Other than Marauder and Crusader, these stats require the Heart of Thorns expansion.

Path of Fire stats were added during Path of Fire and Living World Season 4. These stats require the Path of Fire expansion.

Diviner's gear is a weird edge case. This stat combination was retroactively added in Path of Fire to both Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire gear, so it requires either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire.

If you have any of the Living World Season 3/4 episodes, you can get stat-selectable gear from their corresponding reward tracks. See "Living World Achievements" below for the gear you can get (identical to the gear the reward track provides).

Story/Achievement Rewards

Some story steps and achievements provide exotic gear as a reward. This is the best method of getting exotic gear for new players, but is limited by the achievements available.

Crafting

Crafting is an expensive but reliable way to get exotic equipment. You'll need the appropriate level 400 crafting profession and the recipe for the items you want to craft. You'll also need the right materials, either acquired through farming or the Trading Post.

Crafting can get complicated for Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire stats, as the appropriate recipes are often locked behind map-specific currencies, and the materials may be expensive or account bound. Use the wiki to find the appropriate crafting recipes and where they can be obtained from.

This will set you back 50-200 gold depending on the stat set; you might also have to spend more gold leveling your crafting or buying the recipes.

Depending on the exact stats and how many Badges of Honor you have, this may or may not be a better deal than buying them off the Trading Post. A full set of weapons and armor will set you back 7-10 gold and 1200-1500 Badges of Honor.

Karma

Each of the six temples in Orr has a meta event chain that, when completed, allows you to buy exotic equipment for 42,000 karma apiece. Note that none of these are salvageable, so you might not want to put expensive runes in them.

Dungeon Tokens

If you have some experienced friends to run dungeons with, or you're willing to take your chances with LFG, you can get certain Core/Release stats by doing dungeons. Each explorable path has a daily reward of ~100 unique tokens which you can cash in for exotic armor and weapons at the Dungeon Armor and Weapons vendor.

Ascalonian Catacombs, Twilight Arbor (non-Aetherpath), and Crucible of Eternity are the easiest dungeons for inexperienced players to tackle. Arah is grueling and not recommended for the faint of heart. If you're new to dungeons, I recommend using a LFG description along the lines of "new player LF all paths, help appreciated".

Guild Backpacks

If you’re in an active guild that does guild missions, you can buy exotic backpieces with Berserker's, Magi's, or Soldier's stats from the Guild Commendation Trader for 5 gold and 5 guild commendations each.

You can also buy exotic weapons from this vendor, but this is not recommended as the Trading Post is cheaper.

Prototype Fractal Capacitor

You can buy an exotic Berserker's, Cavalier's, Knight's, or Rabid backpiece from BUY-4373 for 1,350 fractal relics. This backpiece can be upgraded fairly cheaply to an ascended version in the Mystic Forge, making it a good choice for fractal players. However, it does not have an upgrade slot and hence provides inferior stats compared to all other exotic backpieces.

Note that the upgraded ascended version will have the same stat combination as the exotic version.

Beetle Incubator

If you have Living World Season 4 Episode 3 ("Forearmed is Forewarned"), you can buy an exotic backpiece from Kadir in the Domain of Kourna for some karma and map currency. This stat-selectable backpiece provides all Core and Path of Fire stats as well as Plaguedoctor stats.

Ascended Equipment

Differences from Exotic

Ascended equipment differs from exotic equipment in three crucial aspects:

1. Ascended equipment is Account Bound, not Soulbound.

This means you can freely move ascended weapons and trinkets between characters, and ascended armor between characters that wear the same weight of armor.

2. You can't equip multiple copies of Unique ascended trinkets.

For example, you can't equip two Ring of Red Death, even though you have two ring slots. The same applies to accessories. You can work around this in two ways:

Get two differently-named rings or accessories that have the same stats.

Use one ring that is infused or attuned (see "Infusing and Attuning Equipment" below) and one ring that isn't. This is useful if you aren't planning to slot infusions into your rings.

3. Ascended armor and weapons can be reforged in the Mystic Forge to change their stats.

To do this, combine the ascended piece with 5 Globs of Ectoplasm, an Anthology of Heroes (bought from Miyani), and an exotic inscription/insignia with the desired stats. This lets you stat swap any ascended weapon or armor piece, including named weapons and armor pieces you get from achievements.

Note that this is effectively destroying and recreating the ascended piece, so you'll lose any upgrades that were inside it. If you want to keep runes, sigils, or infusions, you'll have to extract them with an Upgrade Extractor or Infusion Extraction Device.

Living World

The single best way to get ascended trinkets is through the Living World maps. All Season 3 maps and some Season 4 maps have a unique farmable currency that can be used to buy stat-selectable ascended trinkets. If you play PvP or WvW, you can also get the map currencies from the appropriate reward tracks.

Note that all of these are Unique, so you can only get one ring and accessory from a single map.

Laurels

Another way to get ascended trinkets with Core/Release stats is to buy them from the Laurel Merchant. This vendor sells trinkets with Apothecary, Berserker's, Cavalier's, Celestial, Cleric's, Knight's, Rabid, Rampager's, and Soldier's stats. You can also buy Core/Hybrid stats, and duplicates of any Core/Extended trinket you received from Living World Season 2 story achievements.

Amulets only cost 30 laurels, making this the cheapest way to get an ascended amulet.

Rings cost 35 laurels, which is pretty cheap. However, getting them with laurels is not recommended as Pristine Fractal Relics are even cheaper.

Accessories cost 40 laurels and 50 Globs of Ectoplasm, which is only worth it if you have lots of laurels and ectoplasm to spare.

You can also buy from the WvW Laurel Merchant, which costs more Badges of Honor but fewer laurels.

Diviner's amulets, accessories, and rings are available from the Priory Scholar in Thunderhead Peaks. However, the merchant only sells one Unique accessory and ring, so if you need two Diviner's accessories or rings, you'll need to get the other one somewhere else (like the Living World Season 3 maps).

Fractal Rings

If you don't mind doing fractals, you can use Pristine Fractal Relics to buy ascended rings from BUY-2046 PFR. These are the same rings sold by the Laurel Merchant, except they only cost 10 Pristine Fractal Relics each. That's a mere 3 days of T1 fractal dailies, or 1 day of T3/T4 fractal dailies if you already have a geared character.

Prototype Fractal Capacitor

As previously mentioned, BUY-4373 sells a Berserker's, Cavalier's, Knight's, or Rabid backpiece for 1,350 fractal relics, which can be upgraded to an ascended version in the Mystic Forge. If you do fractals regularly, this is one of the cheapest ascended backpacks available.

Note that the upgraded ascended version will have the same stat combination as the exotic version.

Guild Commendations

If you're in an active guild that does guild missions, the Guild Commendation Trader sells the same ascended accessories as the Laurel Merchant, but for 5 gold and 12 guild commendations each. This is more cost-effective than buying them with laurels, as guild commendations aren't really used for anything else.

Mist Trinkets

You can buy stat-selectable ascended trinkets from vendors in fractals, PvP, or WvW. This is a relatively expensive way to obtain ascended trinkets, but the trinkets you obtain can have any stats, and you can reselect stats using a Mist Capacitor. The trinkets are also not Unique, so you can equip multiple Mist Bands or Mist Talismans.

Achievements

Some story steps and achievements provide ascended gear as a reward. This is the best method of getting ascended gear for new players, but is limited by the achievements available.

Raise the Banners

You get a stat-selectable ascended backpiece for completing each Raise the Banners collection in Path of Fire. The stats available include all of the stats sold by the Laurel Merchant, as well as Path of Fire stats.

There are 3 collections you can finish, each one providing an ascended backpiece. You get a 4th backpiece for free after completing all the previous collections.

Knight of the Thorn

If you complete the Heart of Thorns story and the Knight of the Thorn questline, you can get a stat-selectable ascended weapon with Core/Release, Core/Extended, or Heart of Thorns stats.

You can have the weapon be a dagger, greatsword, scepter, shield, or sword. While this weapon can't be stat swapped in the Mystic Forge, you can use unbound magic to reselect its stats or the type of weapon it is.

The first ascended weapon is free (only requiring some easy collection achievements). To make more, you'll need to complete the Heart of Thorns story on additional characters, and spend about 30 gold crafting the components for each new weapon.

Specialization Collections

You get an ascended weapon for completing each Specialization Collection. The resulting ascended weapons have a limited selection of stats but can be stat swapped in the Mystic Forge.

Heart of Thorns

Berserker: Sentinel's, Sinister, or Vigilant torch

Chronomancer: Berserker's, Minstrel's, or Soldier's shield

Daredevil: Celestial, Marauder's, or Minstrel's staff

Dragonhunter: Berserker's, Commander's, or Rampager's longbow

Druid: Cleric's, Minstrel's, or Nomad's staff

Herald: Celestial, Crusader's, or Trailblazer's shield

Reaper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Trailblazer's greatsword

Scrapper: Berserker's, Knight's, or Wanderer's hammer

Tempest: Assassin's, Celestial, or Minstrel's warhorn

Path of Fire

Deadeye: Assassin's, Berserker's, or Valkyrie rifle

Firebrand: Marshal's, Trailblazer's, or Viper's axe

Holosmith: Berserker's, Knight's, or Wanderer's sword

Mirage: Carrion, Dire, or Rabid axe

Renegade: Celestial, Crusader's, or Trailblazer's shortbow

Scourge: Apothecary's, Carrion, or Viper's torch

Soulbeast: Marauder's, Marshal's, or Viper's dagger

Spellbreaker: Assassin's, Knight's, or Valkyrie dagger

Weaver: Celestial, Grieving, or Viper's sword

Each of these collections includes an expensive Mystic or Mordant weapon that will set you back about 30 gold. However, collecting a Mystic shield or staff, or a Mordant axe, dagger, or sword, will fulfill the requirement for two collections at once.

Crafting

Crafting is an expensive but reliable way to get ascended armor and weapons. You'll need the appropriate level 500 crafting profession and the recipe for the items you want to craft. You'll also need the right materials, either acquired through farming or the Trading Post. Note that ascended trinkets cannot be crafted.

One important difference between exotic and ascended crafting is that ascended crafting requires several time-gated materials:

Vision Crystals and Lesser Vision Crystals must be crafted with ascended materials or obtained through daily login rewards. You can farm Living World Season 3/4 maps if you need ascended materials.

To get Obsidian Shards to refine ascended materials, you can farm the Silverwastes, Heart of Thorns maps, Unbound Magic, or Volatile Magic. You can also buy them with karma from the Cathedral of Glorious Victory meta event chain.

Crafting can get complicated for Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire stats, as the appropriate recipes are often locked behind map-specific currencies, and the materials may be expensive or account bound. Use the wiki to find the appropriate crafting recipes and where they can be obtained from.

Crafting a full set of ascended armor and weapons will set you back 200-400 gold depending on the stat set; you might also have to spend more gold leveling your crafting or buying the recipes.

Grandmaster Marks

As an alternative to crafting ascended armor and weapons directly, you can craft Grandmaster Marks and use them to buy ascended gear. This is primarily useful for obtaining Core/Extended, Heart of Thorns, or Path of Fire stats without jumping through hoops to get the relevant crafting materials and crafting recipes.

One vendor in each game mode sells the recipes for Grandmaster Marks, and also accepts them as a currency:

This costs around the same as crafting the items normally, but is much more convenient than farming rare/account bound materials. If you play WvW or ranked PvP you can also get the occasional Box of Grandmaster Marks from reward chests.

Raids

If you do PvE raids, you can buy ascended equipment from the Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative for magnetite shards. This is by far the cheapest way to get ascended armor and weapons, but you have to invest time into learning to raid (or at least have friends that are willing to carry you through raids).

Rurik's Engagement Ring

If you have Living World Season 3 Episode 2, Rurik's Engagement Ring is a stat-selectable ascended ring awarded from a questline in Ember Bay. The items for the questline can be bought off the Trading Post for about 50 gold, so it's an option if you have lots of gold to spare.

The selectable stats include Core/Release, Core/Extended, Core/Hybrid, and Heart of Thorns stats.

Path of Fire Vendors

As a last resort, you can use Trade Contracts and Pulsing Brandsparks to buy Path of Fire trinkets from various open world vendors. This is one of the worst and most expensive options available, but as there aren't that many ways to get Path of Fire trinkets as of this writing, it's included for the sake of completeness.

Runes & Sigils

Trading Post

The vast majority of upgrade components can be bought off the Trading Post. Some crafted runes and sigils like

can be expensive, but unfortunately there’s no better way to obtain them (other than obtaining the materials and crafting them yourself).

Runes and sigils introduced in Path of Fire, such as

, can also be obtained for Proofs of Heroics from the Heroics Notary. If you play WvW, check the Heroics Notary before buying expensive upgrade components.

Crafting

Some runes and sigils are account bound and only available through crafting, such as

. Neither the recipe nor the materials are particularly expensive, but you'll need to have the appropriate crafting profession leveled to craft it.

Dungeon-Exclusive Runes and Sigils

Some runes and sigils are exclusive to specific dungeons, including the following meta runes:

: Ascalonian Catacombs

: Twilight Arbor

The best way to get these is to farm the appropriate dungeon for a few days, then buy them with dungeon tokens from the Dungeon Armor and Weapons vendor. The only alternative is to obtain the tokens from the appropriate PvP/WvW reward track; this will take much longer and is only really worth it if you hate dungeons.

HoT-Exclusive Runes and Sigils

The remaining runes and sigils are account bound upgrades introduced in Heart of Thorns, and must either be bought with map-specific currency in PvE or with Proofs of Heroics from the Heroics Notary. In practice this boils down to one of these runes:

: Auric Basin

: Dragon’s Stand

Decide whether you enjoy farming PvE or WvW more, then farm the appropriate currency and buy them from the vendor.

Infusions

Infusing and Attuning Equipment

To put infusions in your gear, you first need ascended equipment with infusion slots. Most ascended equipment comes with one or two preset infusion slots. You can increase the number of infusion slots in certain trinkets by infusing or attuning them:

Rings and backpieces can be infused to add one infusion slot, for a total of two infusion slots.

Rings can also be attuned to add a second infusion slot, for a total of three infusion slots.

Backpieces have inconsistent Mystic Forge recipes and are also fairly expensive to infuse (about 30 gold + a Gift of Ascension). Check the wiki to see which recipe is required to infuse your ascended backpiece.

Note that these Mystic Forge recipes effectively destroy and recreate your ascended trinkets, so you'll lose any upgrades that were inside them. Be sure to remove any expensive infusions using an Infusion Extraction Device before reforging them.

Agony Infusions

Agony infusions are relatively straightforward to acquire. They drop from fractals, and can be combined by an Artificer or INFUZ-5959 into higher tiers of agony infusions. Agony infusions can also be bought and sold on the Trading Post.

Stat Infusions

+4 Stat Infusions

You can buy Mighty, Precise, Malign, Resilient, Vital, or Healing infusions from the Laurel Merchant for 5 laurels each. These are the cheapest stat infusions available, but only provide +4 to a stat rather than +5.

WvW Stat Infusions

WvW Laurel Merchants and Skirmish Supervisors sell stat infusions for WvW currency. These infusions provide +5 to a stat and make you more effective against Guards, Lords, and Supervisors. If you play WvW, these are the cheapest +5 stat infusions available.

Agony Stat Infusions

INFUZ-5959 sells +5, +7, or +9 Agony Infusions that also provide +5 to a stat. These cost agony infusions and integrated fractal matrices. The +5 Agony Infusions can also be bought for magnetite shards and gold from the Basic Magnetite Shard Exchange Operative.

PvE players who only plan to play raids can buy the relatively cheap +5 agony stat infusions. The +7 or +9 infusions are much more expensive and should only be considered by extremely dedicated fractal players.